Travel is at the heart of why I race mountain bike marathons and stage races. Partly, these races are a traveling experience in themselves, taking you on a long journey from point to point or a long loop. No laps, just new ground and new adventures with your mountain bike. This style of racing often requires travel to compete. Not all your races can be local.
Any competitive cyclist knows the use of periodised and structured training. You need your hard days and your easy days. Sometimes you need days off. Many top level mountain bikers and road cyclists take very few days off the bike. We do an endurance, volume based sport. Having the ‘hours in the legs’ is essential. But as soon as you have to travel somewhere for a race, you will probably be tapering your training, and have little time for a ride anyway.
And so that is how it was yesterday, for myself and two of my MarathonMTB.com Race Team teammates, Sam Moorhouse and Justin Morris. We were driving south from Sydney, towards Mansfield and then Mt Buller. Partly to break up the long driving trip to Apollo Bay, and partly to ride the Stone Fly trail at Mt Buller.
Regardless, there was still eight or more hours of sitting in a car. We aren’t good at that. Lethargy took over. But surely, if we haven’t ridden, or worked, yet today, we must be full of energy? Unfortunately not. We fought sleep. Our legs hurt, and we struggled to walk whenever we climbed out of the car. We had travel fatigue.
Thankfully Mansfield was reached, and after some false starts, we drove up to Mt Buller and found the trailhead – at about 6pm. We were ensconced in fog, and riding in our new team strip on a purpose built mountain bike trail. Perfect!
Sam and I didn’t get the same out of our legs as Justin was able to, but the ride left grins on our faces anyway. We were filthy, sweaty from the effort despite the cold temperatures, and fighting sunset. The ride was the perfect end for a long travel day, providing the exercise endorphins we needed after so much travel fatigue!
Next stop – Apollo Bay.